<p>Need advice.</p>
<p>probably not, but they generally address similar themes.</p>
<p>think of possible topics, but don't start on them too soon..
if you do, you'll end up psyching yourself out of submitting what might otherwise have been a top quality essay. read something over enough times and your objectivity gets all 4ucked up... at the same time, don't wait to start writing till < 1 week's time til d day. all of this crap about people "working well under pressure," is just a cop out for laziness/disillusion. in my case (the neurotic type), i waited til 5 days before it was due, ended up slaving over 400 words for 4 prompt 2 essays, scrapping them all on a whim and then writing the keeper nearly straight through in a fit of anxious zeal. i left the first prompt unaddressed entirely until 10 hours before it was due, by which time i'd managed to develop a reasonably sufficient buzz, staying up the rest of the night writing, revising and filling out the rest of my app before submitting with 4 hours to go. </p>
<p>it's a hell of a process, but at some point, hopefully with about a month to go, you just have to sit yourself down, devote a few hours, and write something.
but you've got another 10 months before really worrying about any of that.
handle your grades, and remember that only UCB, UCLA, Merced and sometimes UCSD read the essays, and affirm GPA as being the number one factor for admission. </p>
<p>good luck</p>